surveillance society

Introduction

In recent years, there has been an increasing use of science and technology to fight crime in all over the world. Many countries has been using several type of method to protect the crime such as; Monitoring, Database (Including DNA databases), Biometrics, Fingerprint. This skill is modifying itself day after day by science and technology. Ours everyday life is covered with observation encounters such as CCTV, security tags, DNA records etc. It’s mean we live in a surveillance society. Technology is central to surveillance. Surveillance is a key feature of modern life, upon which we depend.

Recently there is a strong argue that how much we need a surveillance society? Some people think for safety society we need it and most government believe that they should use surveillance society more and more. It is widely believed that modern equipment has a massive effect to recognize the victims.

On the other hand, some people consider that that is conflicting with freedom .It means the death of democracy and freedom. Many people are really not convenient with the fact that they are filmed constantly wherever they go, whatever they do. Many people argue that the surveillance tools are a threat to our personal freedom. Also recent research has suggested that this careful and close observation technology moreover could damage individual privacy.(Foster,2007)
On one side, some have argued that life would be more inconvenient and less secure while aware of being tracked and monitored at all times with new and improved over protectionist system.(Weber,2008)

Can it be argued that technology will keep society safe and stable?
Do you feel more safety in the surveillance society?

This essay will try giving an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of a surveillance society.

Paragraph 1:

the main advantage of a surveillance society (it has helped in major crime investigations, including murder and terrorist cases, help police to catch criminal more quickly)

Paragraph 2:

The second advantage of a surveillance society (Reducing crime and making the fear of crime diminish to almost nothing People feel free from worry knowing that there is a camera to prevent muggers.)

Paragraph 3:

On the other hand, in the surveillance society, we will feel not very comfortable. We must pay more attention on our behavior. Some people believe that they are tracked by someone, if they find a camera is looking at them. A number of people agree that surveillance has interrupted their normal life in the society. For instance, there are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain (1) - about one for every 14 people (2). A person could be caught on CCTV cameras 300 times in a day (3).In addition, It predicts that by 2016 shoppers could be scanned as they enter stores, schools could bring in cards allowing parents to monitor what their children eat, and jobs may be refused to applicants who are seen as a health risk(5).

Paragraph 4:

Second disadvantages of a surveillance society (spend too much money however low result. for example Billions of pounds spent on Britain’s 4.2 million closed-circuit television cameras although only 3 per cent of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV(4) )

Conclusion:

The argument of both side are strong (We need to be a balance between surveillance society and respecting the citizen's rights and personal privacy.)

Reference:

1- BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6108496.stm
Accessed 2 November 2006

2- Daily mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-564240/Billions-spent-CCTV-failed-cut-crime-led-utter-fiasco-says-Scotland-Yard-surveillance-chief.html
Accessed 6 May 2008.

3- BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6108496.stm
Accessed 2 November 2006

4- Times online
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3877670.ece
Accessed 6 May 2008.

5- BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6108496.stm
Accessed 2 November 2006